Our #LyonTeam presenting the prototype of #Explore.

Raphaëlle, Aurélien and Alix, our prominent #LyonTeam, visited our partners of the Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon to present the second phase of the project: the Setting up of the #ExplorePrototype in the Civilization Section.

From the silence of the main building of the Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon(BML), the #LyonTeam Raphaelle Bats (Enssib), Aurélien Tabard and Alix Ducros (Université Lyon 1) introduced BML Librarians from the Society and Civilization Sections to the new #ExplorePrototype.

#Explore is the result of a two-years work aimed to use new technologies to encourage interactions between library collections and events. Explore integrates relevant information and sources of participatory activities into the collection in order to be accessible to any user in the upcoming future. The core of this project is to understand the intersections of libraries internal activities and communities, such as with workshops, and to consider them as important asset in the knowledge creation process. By doing so, libraries contribute to strengthening communities ties, leading in a productive way the chaotic chain of information as long as helping create new sources of bibliography.

The technical focus of the prototype is on the idea of making the interaction as useful as possible in order to structure the use of space and encourage the exchange of knowledge, social rapports and soft skills. "Informatics instruments can appeal the digital native’s generation, especially when it comes to a type of social space which is made of mere attention competitions", said Aurélien Tabard, one of the #LyonTeam members. Raphaëlle Bats, library science scholar and also a #LyonTeam member added that that libraries (and librarians) had to conjugate daily obligations and the acquisition of new technology. “Explore is an opportunity for us to capitalize the knowledge created within these walls. That’s why, it is important to appropriate these tools in our daily work and encourage others to do the same” Following the Aurélien and Raphaëlle presentation, Alix Ducros, doctoral student from the project and #Explore developper, explained some relevant elements of Explore.

In this testing phase, explore will be placed in two localisations: at the BML entrance and in the Society Civilization Sector (BML Second Floor) What this phase of the project aims to achieve is to assess the satisfaction level of potential users and the eventual problems of the prototype. Both technical and social assessment will be put forward so as to integrate these results into the final version of #Explore.

We are very happy to start working with the BML and we are sure they are looking forward to installing the prototype in their shelves!